


Ghosts Don't Exist

by kylocatastrophe



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (he does it out of spite), (more to come later), 1930's slang, Crack Treated Seriously, Ghost Hunter AU, Ghost Hunter Hux, Ghosts, Historical References, Louisiana (but not really), M/M, New England (but not really), Paranormal, implied historical slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-11-30 07:57:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11459346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylocatastrophe/pseuds/kylocatastrophe
Summary: Armitage B. Hux is a man of science. His interest is in proving that ghosts and other paranormal phenomena do not exist. There is a scientific explanation for everything, and he aims to find it. He and Mitaka are so called paranormal investigators. They've been to more than one hundred supposedly haunted locations, and Hux has not once experienced anything he deigned paranormal. He is very interested in the presence of certain low frequency sounds that manifest in every location he's been to, and have been reported at even more. People have told him that the reason he never finds anything is because he isn't looking for them. Hux is very sure he is being thorough, and approaches any investigation with the intense observation of a Scientist. Having debunked a handful of infamous locations, Hux is firm in his belief that ghosts, spirits, poltergeists, and demons do not exist.Until he finds one Kylo Ren, perhaps the WORST ghost in the whole world, in Louisiana midst the burnt wreckage of an old cotton farmhouse. Ghosts can't actually exist, can they?





	1. Bog Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is not edited or anything. I literally sat down and wrote it in like 4 hours. Ever since I posted about it on Tumblr I haven't been able to NOT think about it.
> 
> To be clear this is crack treated seriously. It's full of mistakes, probably.

Hux was, first and foremost, a man of science. As a man of science, he believed in data, predictive models, and things that could be tested and proved within a margin of error over and over again. He wasn’t really quite sure how his life ended up trying to apply science to the overflowing paranormal community.  Maybe it had something to do with his obsession with the Bermuda Triangle. Regardless, he’d made it his sole purpose in life to refute, disprove, and explain every haunting, poltergeist, ghost, spirit, demon, or paranormal happening he came across.

 

As a man of science, he had absolutely no explanation for the man standing in front of him in a briskly chilly room. It had been absolutely stifling not even a moment earlier. The gross, muggy air of the bayou just half a jump and a skip away from the overgrown cotton fields had been prevalent in the rest of the house, but this room felt a good (blessed) ten degrees cooler, and the humidity was sliced clean in half. The barometer on his wrist read a much lower pressure than the rest of the property, but Hux wasn’t looking at it. He was looking at the man who seemed just as shocked to see him. 

 

“Who the bloody fuck are you?”

 

“.... You don’t look like a copper. You ain’t a dick, are ya?”

 

Hux had enough of his wits about him to make sure his body cam was still recording, along with the FLIR thermal camera, and the audio. He didn’t chance looking away to check the feedback, eyes glued to the soot blackened arms, stark against the rolled up off-white shirt sleeves. The man had suspenders half on, buttoned to his trousers, which were smeared with ash and littered with what he guessed were burn holes from sparks.

 

“Excuse me?” Was the sod calling him a cock?

 

“A dick, like a… you know, gumshoe?” The man looked a little confused.

 

“A detective?”

 

“Yeh, what’s with all the swanky shit?”

 

“Uh.” Hux sucked in a breath through his nose. The faint charring smell that clouded the estate suddenly seemed much, much stronger. “I’m an investigator, but I wouldn’t say I was a detective - is something burning?”

 

Infuriatingly, Hux just got a shrug in response.

 

“Look, sir, I don’t know who you are, but I strongly advise you leave. This place is very unsafe.”

 

The man laughed. “Yeh, kinda is. But you’re here, boyo, and anyroads, it’s my house.”

“Ridiculous. Nobody’s owned this property since the late thirties. I really think you should leave.” Hux reached for him, hand closing around a deceptively cold wrist. “Christ almighty - and get you a jacket.”

 

“A jacket? It’s hotter than hell, are you daft?”

 

Hux stopped and looked him up and down once more. “No, you’re... Oh, that’s rich. Very funny. Look, I’ve been to hundreds of these places, and I know you believers hate me for what I do but come on, this is ridiculous. Pretending to be a ghost? You do realize I’m  _ touching _ you.”

 

A more familiar voice chimed in from the doorway Hux had entered from, “Who are you talking to?”

 

“This guy, I don’t know his name, he’s-” Hux looked back to see Mitaka, swiveled back to look at the strange, ash covered man, and then back at Mitaka. “Oh, not you, too.”

 

Mitaka had his steadicam up in his face, and snapped a photo. “Uh, no, Hux, I think you need to see this, but I’m not going in there. You could actually pay me, and I wouldn’t go in there.” He fiddled with the camera for a moment, then turned the viewport around. 

 

“You, stay put.” He glared at the man before letting him go to see what Mitaka was on about.

 

There was no one beside him in the photograph. The light from Mitaka’s headlamp was illuminating Hux’s face, and cast a pair of shadows over the fireplace behind him. The mirror above it barely reflected the back of Hux’s hard hat, and beside it, there was a smudgy figure that distorted what should have been the ash covered man. Instead, it looked like he was seeing Mitaka and his camera through a smoky filter, and it was beyond what the grime and dust on the cracked mirror could have done. 

 

Hux looked back at the room, and saw the ash covered man still standing there with a goofy half grin on his face. It widened into a full, toothy smile.

 

“Boo.”

 

\---

 

Hux was a man of science and a ghost hunter, but his focus was in proving that such things didn’t exist. Initially, he just wanted to provide solid science. It turned into serial mythbusting which earned him a reputation in the paranormal community as a naysayer and science slave.

 

His resume so far included debunking such stories as the infamous Alcatraz hauntings, the Athelhampton House in Dorset, the so called “evil vortex” in Dudleyville, Connecticut, as well as the whole host of sightings that once made the Bridgewater Triangle in Massachusetts popular with ghost hunters and paranormal experts. The only thing he hadn’t been able to debunk in the area was the Copicut Road truck driver. He and Mitaka had traveled the road for three months, unable to recreate or experience such a happening. Interestingly enough, after their visit and documentation, alleged sightings had ceased. The only thing that had been remotely spooky to Hux was the Hockomock swamp. Ultimately, he decided it was a sacred place to peoples he didn’t understand, and honestly, he had no place trudging about in the leaflitter knowing it had been historically an important place to the local Native Americans.

 

While they were out there, they even debunked the Bridgewater UFOs. Hux went an extra ten miles digging through released government paperwork to link previous sightings up to thirteen years back. Mitaka had been particularly bummed about that. He was the space junkie between the two of them. Aliens though, were something Hux could entertain. With that much just… out there, it was preposterous to assume that humans were the only sentient life in the universe. What he could not reconcile was the probability that humans would exist and overlap with another sentient life form, especially when their arrival in the grand scheme of things was simply an infinitesimal blip in the incredible universal timeline.

 

He and Mitaka tended to work with just the two of them. Hux had a bit of a bad rap with the rest of the community, especially with mediums. He honestly had no explanation for people who believed they were sensitive to the things they claimed, and he had no way of really testing it - though he had some plans that included some electromagnetic pulses, auditory frequencies and specific vibrations. There were so many things that he had collected from over a decade of samples and recordings at various locations across the US, Canada, and the UK. Outside of the blog and youtube channel that Mitaka maintained, Hux kept his studies to himself.

 

His data, so far, supported an idea that hauntings required a certain atmosphere. Factors that contributed to it ranged from certain sounds and smells to things like air pressure and temperature. While he couldn’t explain exactly what it was that caused the certain infrasound vibrations in these hot spots, he was certain that these - based on old military studies of low frequency sounds and their effect on the human brain and psyche - were to blame for mass hallucinations. There were some more recent medical studies on sound frequencies ranging 10Hz to 200Hz, but short of using himself and Mitaka as guinea pigs, he couldn’t recreate the results himself. And that was ignoring the fact that two was a very small test pool, and that he didn’t seem bothered by infrasound. Mitaka always said it set him on edge, though. For some strange reason, he kept coming with Hux to these havens of low frequency sounds. There was not one single location that they had been to that didn’t emit these low hertz frequencies.

 

Hux had also found that the exact frequency varied throughout a location, but usually didn’t change more than three hertz in either direction, and they had wavelengths that collided with each other. However, it was rare to find two places with the exact same frequency. He’d tried to find correlations between these noises and the environments, even researching the thickness of the Earth’s crust in all of these locations, or the distance from a subterranean fault line. His initial hypothesis had been that these frequencies were the result of deep crust rock moving against each other, or against the magma flow circulating beneath them, since low frequency wavelengths could travel for a long time through dense material. He compared it to the fact that blue light and ultraviolet light traveled much deeper into the ocean than visible light, or higher frequencies of light. While high frequencies have the advantage of being stronger because they collide much more frequently with objects, it also means they have a much harder time traveling through them. The larger and longer the wave, the longer distance it was able to travel through denser material. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a geologist, and he had a hard time getting any to treat him seriously enough. It was even harder for him to convince a financial backer to fund such a research endeavor.

 

So he canned the theories, though only after thoroughly writing them up for his archive. Hux had literal miles of footage, having kept everything from back when he used an old VHS camcorder in high school. It had been copied and digitized, along with all of his tape deck recordings. He kept the physical copies in archival grade fireproof containers, and left nothing to chance. While he might not believe in the things he was investigating, he was thorough, precise, and refused to let anything slip past him. Everything was labeled, redundant, and organized. This trend carried to their equipment. Hux had padded camera bags, containers, and slings for everything. Each item had a place when they returned to base, and all of their equipment was catalogued. The condition, time in use, and locations were logged.

 

His contributions to Mitaka’s blog were like excerpts from a lab book, in massive contrast to Mitaka’s entries, which were much more emotional and introspective. Hux was clinical and concerned with the reporting and documentation itself. Hux logged EVERYTHING. Mitaka was just glad that it meant nothing got lost. It might have been frustrating for him to obey Hux’s intricate systems, but he probably learned to find it therapeutic after a time. He tended to wait until Hux was done before he went in to add his equipment or notes to the logs. Then Hux would come in after him, look over everything, and get started on his own work.

 

Hux began with balancing the books. They had an allotted income from the blog, based on ads and promotions. Mitaka started and maintained a Patreon for their endeavors, and they’d just topped two hundred patrons last week when they had gone to Seattle for the Haunted Tour. There was also income from their youtube deal, provided they stuck to their upload schedule and produced high traffic content. Hux refused to let any of their media deals detract from their aims as a company, but they needed the capital. Another chunk of their income came from merchandise, but that was very, very small. Most of it came from a scientific grant of all things, and Hux’s anal logkeeping were to keep that funding coming. They also had one financial backer, one Mr. Snoke of First Order Industries. He was the CEO, and had a fancy for the work Hux was doing, and even enjoyed the media he and Mitaka produced. Hux had never met the man in person, but he had afforded Hux many opportunities to get his hands on actual military and medical research without having to jump through scholarly and government hoops. Thankfully, Mr. Snoke did not make many demands. He only wanted them to continue the research. He was also halfway through getting Hux’s first paper - one which he’d started in college - published. The second one, which examines, catalogues and compares the low frequency sounds at nearly one hundred purported paranormal locations, was still being reviewed.

 

The rest of the money was Hux’s inheritance. He tried not to spend it if he couldn’t help it. It really just paid for food, and the mortgage. The good news was they usually ended up in the black at the end of the week, but from Monday two Thursday, they were always in the red. Hux was nose deep in the checkbook when Mitaka interrupted him.

 

“Armi-”

 

“Yes,  _ Doppy _ ?” Hux stressed the nickname he knew Mitaka hated in response to the pet name.

 

Mitaka chewed on his lip, but he wasn’t really miffed. “I found something pretty under reported in the middle of nowhere, Louisiana. It’s an old cotton property out in that reclamation swamp. Hasn’t been really documented, but it’s huge in the local history. Six fires since it was built in the 1700’s - first in 1778, then in 1841, so they retrofitted it for gaslight, but I guess they never really got it right, because it burned down in 1862, 1893, 1903, and 1942. It’s been destitute ever since, and it’s got a strange history otherwise. 

  
Started as a cotton farm, slave hands and the whole thing, and was also a stop for United States post from the train station. During the Civil War, it was said to have been set ablaze to send a message to northern sympathizers, and the reputation for anti-confederate sentiments stuck, so it was burned down twice during the disenfranchisement and segregation era, even though the property had been reformed into a church home for troubled youth. It ended up being an orphanage after the 1903 fire. 

 

No one’s really sure what the property looked like originally, but city hall has all of the blueprints for each of the rebuilt structures. I wouldn’t hope they’re in any good condition, but the place is rife with stories and legends about curses. The last article I found about it is from 2006. Someone tried to turn it into a horror house for halloween. Needless to say, a bunch of people got hurt. Guess what happened.”

 

Hux stared at Mitaka, trying not to be amused by the smug excitement on his face.

 

“C’mon, guess.”

 

He barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes.

 

“It went up in flames.”

 

“Yep. Authorities found no traces of arson, and the whole property was drenched from heavy rains the week prior. Fire went out on its own. There are a few other stories in the local news about spontaneous combustion at the location, in the 60’s and late 90’s. One of the other paranormal bloggers claims to have been there, but honestly, looking at photos of the place, not only is it unsafe, but it is reaaaaally creepy.”

 

“Sounds like the perfect thing to debunk. Send me everything you’ve found. Let’s case the town and get all the documentation we can.”

 

“Already on it!”

 

\---

 

Well, that’s how he ended up in Louisiana in the middle of summer. It didn’t explain the man sized air conditioning unit who didn’t appear on film that he’d stumbled upon, though.

 

“Well if you see someone there, talk to them!”

 

“But my whole life’s work- this can’t - it’s impossible - there’s no way--”

 

“You and me both, bud. People don’t make a habit of seein’ me much.”

 

Mitaka shifted in the doorway, uncomfortable, but present enough to put in the earbud from his audio box. He nodded at Hux and shooed him back into the room. He stepped back, rubbing his arms with a shiver.

 

Hux rolled his eyes. “Look,  _ bud _ , you aren’t floating, and so… maybe you aren’t showing up on my partner’s camera, but you are not a ghost. I’ve been doing this for more than ten years. I’ve never once seen or felt anything that made me think you exist- oh god, don’t tell me I’m hallucinating. That the gas is still on or something ludicrous.”

 

“No, I am, you aren’t, it isn’t.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“No, I don’t float. I can’t go through walls or anything. Yes, I am a ghost. I know I’m dead. I’ve been here since…” The man tapped his chin, smearing soot on it. “Since the late 30’s. I lost tracka time.”

 

He continued, “You aren’t hallucinating, and no, the gas line is off. If you ask me, which you aren’t, you boys are off on a trip for biscuits. I can’t explain me, and I doubt to the ends of this Earth that you can’t either. I just knows some twits come ‘round sometimes, but nobody sticks around long. ‘Cept yous.”

 

Hux blinked. “Alright then. Who are you?” 

 

That seemed to smooth him over a bit. “Kylo”

 

“Kyle-o?”

 

The man’s lips twisted. “No, just Kylo. I hears ya saying the e. Ky-lo.”

 

“Yes, Kyle-o.”

 

Kylo frowned. “Sure, fine. Who are yous’zen?”

 

“I’m Hux. That’s Mitaka. We investigate and debunk paranormal activity.” Hux didn’t notice Mitaka’s growing concern from beyond the doorway. “So you’ve been here since you died in the late 30’s, you think? What happened here?”

 

Kylo nodded, “Yup. It burned down. Happens a lot here. Jus’ cuz. My family’s been ‘round here for years. I think all the way to those Frenchies and farms.”

 

“So you died in 1942. What was this place around that time?” Hux thought back to their research. The last names had been lost for a long time, so he had no way of refuting or confirming Kylo’s second point.

 

“Orphanage.”

 

Hux was startled by Kylo’s short response. “So you weren’t the only one who died here?”

 

Kylo suddenly looked a lot younger. The room seemed to warm, blanching right back to the wet summer heat of the bayou. “No. They all burned.”

 

“They?”

 

Kylo just looked at Hux in silence. The house creaked, charred wood groaning under its own weight in the still air. The mirror above the fireplace pinged, and Hux felt a sudden blast of heat as the mirror shattered, the leaded glass scattering across the blackened floor. That was enough to make Hux jump and flinch back, wondering if his eyebrows had been singed off. His ears were ringing something fierce, but Kylo was still just standing there midst the shards of glass as if nothing had happened.

 

“Hux, we really ought to leave, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking to but you really need to hear the box. This is  _ fucked up shit _ .”

 

Mitaka only swore when he was scared shitless. If he was nervous, he stammered. Scared shitless, he swore. Hux could feel his fear prickle along the back of his neck and wash over his shoulders, and like spiders, trickle down his spine. He still couldn’t reconcile the soot covered man standing in the room with Mitaka’s horror.

 

“Th. Uh. Thank you for your time, but we’re going now,” Hux said, clearing his throat. He stepped backwards through the threshold, watching Kylo as he took a step forward for each Hux took back. He swallowed, daring a glance back at Mitaka.

 

“I’m not going to hurt you, I swear. Swear on my… not-life.” Kylo seemed to deflate when he realized that didn’t really sound too great, considering he only had a not-life. Despite himself, Hux found that awkwardly endearing. 

 

“Just. We aren’t leaving for good, stay here a tic. I still want to interview you, okay, Kylo?”

 

“ _ Are you fucking insane?! _ ” 

 

“ _ Shh~! _ ” Hux turned his attention back to Kylo, who’d stopped following them by the front door and gaping porch.

 

“Oh. Okay. Ta, then.”

 

Mitaka kept himself quiet until they’d gone far enough down the overgrown path to basically reach the vehicle.

 

“You want to  _ come back to this hell pit?! _ Do you want to die?” Mitaka shook Hux roughly, enough to dislodge his hard hat. It threatened to catapult off of his head until Hux caught it and ducked out of Mitaka’s grip.

 

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’ve never felt anything or seen anything like this. If I can document him, this is THE paper of the century, Dop.”

 

“Fuck, Hux, you didn’t hear the Goddamn box, whatever the hell you think you’re seeing, that thing is a demon. I swear. A fucking demon. And oh my GOD you told it our NAMES are you INSANE? Oh, and that feeling? That you’ve never felt before? That’s FEAR. Pure, unadulterated FEAR, Hux.” Mitaka was panting, shaking, and waving his arms in full hysteria.

 

Hux tucked the hard hat under his arm and started turning off his equipment. “Mitaka. I’ll listen to the box. I have to go through the footage we got tonight anyway, so I’ll see and hear everything. I still need to process everything that happened… and… still come to terms with what I saw, but… I mean, the guy looked like he was probably in his early to mid twenties. Maybe late twenties.”

 

His finger hovered over the kill switch for his audio equipment for a moment before he put his hand down, opting to record his initial review. “Subject was, like I said, mid twenties, black hair, mid length, wavy. Called himself Kylo, and was obviously masculine. He was covered in soot and ash, looked to be caucasian, maybe six feet tall. Was wearing a button down shirt, sleeves rolled up, hands covered in black soot. He had black trousers with ash smears and burn holes around the knees and hem, and suspenders, I believe. I remember he had a rather large nose.”

 

The more he talked, the more rational he felt about the whole thing. “Kylo said that people don’t normally see him, but he has seen people come and go here after the last fire. He also said he can’t move through objects. I also touched him, which is why I initially believed it was a joke. His skin was cold, but other than that, I can’t remember what it felt like.”

 

Mitaka threw his hands up in the air, huffed, and went around to the passenger side of the car to begin putting his equipment away. He wasn’t going to stand out there in the hot night air in the middle of a creepy ass bog at the edge of a small knoll with a fucking terrifying burned farmhouse standing in the distance just in front of the mist.

 

It was so dark that the starlight above, winking between the clouds and hanging fog, gave enough light to still make out the structure. For being burnt, and suffering a few other fires since the final demise in 1942, the house seemed to be fairly alright. The floorboards and walls were scorched, and the worst parts that he’d documented were in what the blueprint said was the kitchen and cellar entrance. The exposed wood there had been charred to the rough, cracked texture of raw charcoal. What paper and paint remained in these areas were curled, and brittle chunks had decorated the floors, undisturbed by animals.

 

Aside from the invading plant life, termite damage, and the fact that the entire building sagged to one side with old age, it was in pretty okay shape for being uncared for since the early 40’s. He supposed perhaps Kylo had been a steward of sorts. Hux imagined roaming the same place alone for more than 75 years. He paused to check the math.

 

“Shit, he’s been there for 77 years.”

 

Hux looked back at the porch, barely able to pick out Kylo’s shape, but sure enough, he was still standing there in the open doorway. Hux hastened to put his equipment away, finally shutting off the audio box. He packed everything in its place, and started the hardy little Subaru. Mitaka made a noise of relief, grabbing the roof handle when Hux threw it into reverse and floored it along their tracks in.


	2. Audio Damage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux gets the chance to go through the audio, and it isn't how he remembers the conversation with Kylo going. Not at all. His life work in question, and the implications of such faltering hits too close to home, and he isn't sure how to really compartmentalize it. He slaps a band-aid on it for now, because he still has work to do, questions to ask, and experiments to conduct.
> 
> Kylo is still the world's shittiest ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another unedited, unbeta'd chapter. I mean it's just crack so I'll pound it out.
> 
> As a note, I know NOTHING about Louisiana except for what I've looked up specifically for staging this fic. I don't know the area or the locale. It's a location fantasy. However, the one lodge does exist there, and there is a big ole swamp there to the north west.
> 
> Enjoy!

There was one hotel back at the tiny settlement of Butte LaRose. The whole town was maybe two thousand feet across, not counting what was on the other side of the bayou. It was far from a ghost town, but everybody knew everybody else, so Hux and Mitaka stood out like sore thumbs. The Mardi Gras crowd was long gone, tourists fleeing the booze and parties before the summer climate grabbed hold of the riverfront. The heat and humidity were unforgiving. While he wished they could have been there around February, Hux was glad for the lack of bustle. Ultimately, he supposed the peace and quiet - save random July fireworks, gunshots in the woods, and the early morning dynamite fishing.

 

Kylo’s little haunted estate was roughly two miles into the overgrown swamp to the north east of the town, though it was closer to twenty minutes of zig zagging off road on unstable earth. Mitaka had been the one concerned about giant river snakes and alligators. Hux just kept the high beams on and stayed as steady on their track in from the afternoon. He didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there. Like ghosts, he supposed.

 

Hux scoffed at the thought out of pure habit, half focused on getting them out of the swamp. He glanced at the GPS, and slowed down despite himself to let the four wheel drive do the work. Looking at the clock, he had to guess that they’d left the property around two in the morning. Chances are it would be around a quarter till three by the time they got to the Atchafalaya River. Beside him, Mitaka had finally stopped shaking. He looked tired, but there was no way he was going to be sleeping.

 

Neither of them would. Hux wanted to go through as much of their collected data as he could, and he was really curious about what Mitaka was hearing through the box.

 

Eventually, they did reach the Atchafalaya River highway. Hux turned onto the mostly deserted, two lane excuse for a highway. From there, it was only a six minute stint to reach the lodge.

 

Mitaka grabbed his equipment, and Hux his own. He nudged the car door shut with his foot, arms laden with padded bags, cameras, and both of their hard hats. Fumbling a bit, he managed to hit the lock on the key fob, and then sighed heavily through the camera bag strap in his mouth. He could see no way to get the door key out of his pocket with his arms full.

 

Their trail from the car to the lodge was marked by dried mud flaking off their shoes. Back in the near empty parking lot, the slightly dinged up Subaru Forester was the only vehicle with mud splashes caking the rims, wheel walls, and a good two thirds of the side panels. Hux didn’t remember kicking up that much muck. It reminded him of the time he accidentally drove into a peat bog in the UK. His father had not been happy about the state of the car afterward.

 

Ever mindful, Hux paused to stomp as much mud off of his shoes as he could before stepping onto the walkway that led to the lodge rooms. Mitaka’s, on the other hand, were mostly clean by the time he reached their door. Hux was glad for that, because he’d hate to have the one woman who cleaned the entire property upset with them for making a muddy mess. They’d already been there for a week and a half for on site research and interviews to pick up the local spin, and weren’t scheduled to leave until the end of August, so he really wanted to stay on the proprietors’ and workers’ good sides.

 

Their visit tonight was supposed to just scope the area out and assess damage before they started collecting hard data on ambient sounds, local geological and meteorological readings, and the works. He hadn’t even assessed places to put their long term recording equipment, and he was fairly certain Mitaka hadn’t either. This annoyed him, but he did eventually decide that was a bit unfair. He’d met something he had believed didn’t exist for his entire life. 

 

Hux tapped the toes of his boots against the door mat to shake off any lingering mud for good measure before stepping inside their shared suite. Mitaka had already dumped his gear and had begun sorting through it, lit by the glow of Hux’s travel computer setup. Calling it a travel set up was a major understatement. It was a full blown system, built for handling, decoding and encoding audio and video to keep up with all of their raw data collection. Mostly, it was used to scrub through things of interest, but also really helped cut down processing time. If they got started on it while still in the field, it meant less work by the time they got back. It was just child’s play to transfer from the drives on the computer to the servers at home.

 

Beside him, the logbook for the equipment was open, and Mitaka was busy recording his dates and times. The screen showed he was already copying the audio from the ghost box’s micro SD.

 

Hux added his equipment to the line, and moved to turn on the light. He drew the blinds for the outward facing windows. Reassessing the clutter, Hux went back to the equipment and organized it. Cameras, arranged by purpose and size from gopro to Mitaka’s SLR came first, then the audio devices, with an empty case for Mitaka’s ghost box. He lined up their lights, flash lights and LED flood light next to their walkie talkies, GPS trackers, and barometric readers. The last things set in place were the EMP monitors. There were other things that they didn’t use that night, so Hux just put them in their designated places inside the large carrying case. It was about three feet wide by two feet tall, and was a foot deep with customized foam inserts. With a total of five of them, each the same size, but with their own foam inserts. They were built to fit in the back of the Forester with the back seats down, and there were smaller ones that puzzled into the empty spaces.

 

Right now, the dining table was taken over by one of them, and the rest, most still holding equipment, were lined up against the walls. Their suite was just large enough to not feel overcrowded by all of the black clamshell cases.

 

By the time Mitaka finished logging the equipment, the audio had been copied over, and dumped in the proper folder, as per Hux’s previously set up system. Hux picked up his headphones and slid into the desk chair.

 

“Let’s look at what you picked up from that conversation, then.”

 

“Yes, because I doubt either of us will sleep until the sun’s up.”

 

Hux only shrugged. “You were recording the whole night beforehand?”

 

“Just about. Try about….” Mitaka tapped his fingers on the edge of the desk, trying to remember accurately “An hour and fifteen minutes in. I don’t think I turned it on until I did the walk around the outside of the house.”

 

Hux scrubbed through noises of Mitaka walking around the property, mud squelching, soggy reeds getting rumpled and pushed aside by his boots as he moved. The sounds of his boots on the hollow floorboards as he probably examined the wraparound porch. He skipped deeper in the recording.

 

_ “-omeone there, talk to them!” _

 

_ “But my whole life’s work- this can’t - it’s impossible - there’s no way--” _

 

Hux heard static overtake his voice, and a low growl reverberated in his ears. He could feel it in his chest, and he immediately recognized it as one of those bone chilling, uneasy noises. If a voice could sound like nails on a chalkboard, this one did. The words were distorted, torn up, but much clearer than the garbage out of a layman’s ghost box.

 

_ “Leave. Mine. Must leave-escape get out get out out-leave.” _

 

He couldn’t quite remember the cadence of the conversation, but heard more static before his own voice.

 

_ “Look, bud, you aren’t floating, and so… maybe you aren’t showing up on my partner’s camera, but you are not a ghost. I’ve been doing this for more than ten years. I’ve never once seen or felt anything that made me think you exist- oh god, don’t tell me I’m hallucinating. That the gas is still on or something ludicrous.” _

 

There was a pause, and Hux caught up to the point in his memory. Kylo had answered something quippy and short that hadn’t made sense. He wasn’t expecting to hear a scratchy, hissing voice.

 

_ “Pain, torn, burning. I am-” _

 

_ “Pardon?” _

 

_ “-n’t leave, I’ll take-”  _ The recording crackled and popped in his ears before coming back.  _ “Mine. This sin will drag you down. Down-pain-heat. No one comes. No one leaves. No one leaves. No one leaves. No one leaves. No one leaves, they can’t leave-leave me alone. Not alone no, never. Always.” _

 

He heard the din and overlapping voices calm to soft, but otherwise unintelligible sounds.

 

_ “Alright then. Who are you?”  _

 

_ “Kylo”  _ The voice sounded more familiar now, vaguely two toned, but much more human.

 

_ “Kyle-o?” _

 

_ “No, just Kylo. Kylo. Kylo KyLO MY NAME”  _ It rose to a pitch, and Hux lost the familiarity. The next time he spoke, it was cut with the static.

 

_ “Yes, Kyle-o.” _

 

_ “Hux needs to leave.” _

 

_ “I’m Hux. That’s Mita-” _ Hux took off his headphones, which continued dimly and too muffled to really hear.

 

“You got to where it said your name.”

 

Numbly, Hux realized he’d stopped the audio playback. “He- my. Said my name before I even- what? That isn’t even what he said. I don’t remember this. I mean, what I’m saying in here is right but he wasn’t saying these things. How?”

 

“I don’t know. Just keep listening, it gets really weird.”

 

“Get my audio box, I need to check it with what I recorded.” Hux already put his headphones on and started the playback again.

 

_ “-ou died in the late 30’s, you think? What happened here?” _

 

_ “Burned it all, burned, razed. Over and over and over and over and over and over. One for sin. One for curse. One for pain. Four, five, six times over-” _

 

_ “So you died in 1942. What was this place around that time?”  _

 

_ “Orphanage.”  _ Kylo’s voice was riddled with the low, cracking growl.

 

_ “So you weren’t the only one who died here?” _

 

_ “No. They all burned.”  _ Hux could hardly hear Kylo speak through the harsh snarl that had grown from the growl. It had almost consumed what Hux had said in the recording just prior, and then it all stopped abruptly. He couldn’t even hear the usual noise of the over-sensitive microphone, despite the sudden crystal clarity of the audio. Hux heard his response cut through the silence like a hot knife.

 

_ “They?” _

 

In the recording, he heard the plink of the mirror cracking, and the tinkling of a million shards hitting and scattering across the charred floor. The clear audio surged into harsh crackling, which mounted into a blood curdling scream that temporarily blew out the poor microphone. It lasted long enough to blank out a good three seconds of the recording. Hux remembered feeling the heat, and the glass shattering, but not this horrifying screeching.

 

_ “-fuck you’re talking to but you really need to hear the box. This is fucked up shit.” _

 

_ “Th. Uh. Thank you for your time, but we’re going now.”  _ There was the sound of Hux clearing his throat, which got louder as he moved closer to Mitaka and the microphone. The sound of his boots on the floor was also picked up.

 

_ “You will belong to me. Hux can’t leave me. Armie can’t.” _

 

_ “Just. We aren’t leaving for good, stay here a tic. I still want to interview you, okay, Kylo?” _

 

_ “Are you fucking insane?!”  _

 

_ “Shh~!” _

 

Whatever was said next was too distorted to make out, and Hux wasn’t about to fall into the typical ghost box trap of replaying it over and over again until his brain forced a recognizable pattern on the garbled mess. The muffled, hurried sounds of the two of them fleeing to the car, interspersed with the odd squelch of mud when they hit low spots. It was still void of the usual nighttime sounds beyond Mitaka’s panicked breathing.

 

_ “You want to come back to this hell pit?!-” _

 

Hux paused the recording and took off his headphones again, carefully placing them over the monitor. For a while, he just sat there, brain churning, trying to puzzle what he’d just heard from Mitaka’s recording with what he remembered talking to Kylo about. Some part of him was aware that Mitaka had put the SD card from his audio device in the card reader, and that he leaned over to commandeer the mouse, click through the menus, and bring the file up in the audio player. Mitaka’s hand came to rest on his shoulder, and Hux registered it being squeezed gently. Finally, Hux leaned back in the chair.

 

He put the headphones on again, and began scrubbing through his audio. He found the conversation, including the initial contact. With his source much closer to Kylo, it seemed to be a bit clearer, but the static was also louder.

 

The conversation held the same cadence as Mitaka’s recording, Hux’s familiar queries, and Kylo’s unfamiliar, and honestly, terrifying responses.

 

He played it back again. Then a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth time. He listened to it until he stopped jumping at the sound of the mirror shattering. He counted the pauses, the breaths, the waver in the growling. Hux couldn’t make sense of it at all. He had no explanation for the stark difference in how he remembered the conversation going. At this point, he wasn’t even sure if the conversation he remembered having was real.

 

The headphones found their place on the monitor, Hux’s hands only shaking a little. He missed the power button for the monitor three times, and slumped back. The chair creaked beneath him. Hux combed a hand through his hair, still trying to school the tremor from them. He didn’t even trust himself to speak. Behind him, Mitaka had changed into pajamas, and was busy with his laptop, absolutely sprawled out on the bed.

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“Mmh?”

 

“It doesn’t make any sense. Our recordings are the same, but my… what I think he said to me… it’s just not - I don’t understand how I could remember one thing, but the equipment says something else entirely.” Mouth dry, he licked his lips and felt how chapped they were.

 

“Dop, I don’t even know if what I remember was real,” Hux admitted, and felt something painful twist in his chest. The look Mitaka gave him just made it worse. It was a horrible empathetic pity.

 

He shoved the chair back from the desk and stormed into the kitchenette, foraging for something to drink. “I’m not going crazy,” he muttered, filling a glass at the sink. “I just have to make a record, somehow.”

 

Hux tapped the lip of the glass, watching the water inside ripple gently. “Since audio is out, and cameras won’t work, all I have left is written record. Not as objective as I’d like… as far as data collection goes…” He drank half the glass right there at the sink, and filled it again as he mulled the idea over. The more he thought about it, the clearer it became that there was no viable alternative. He also found himself wondering what Kylo’s response would be to hearing what his voice sounded like through the microphones. 

Would he be startled? Amused? Or not even react? It was easy to imagine he’d be surprised. He seemed very harmless, if not a little reserved about direct answers. Initially, he hadn’t done much research about the last tenants or the exact story of the orphanage. The legwork was there, but there wasn’t much about Kylo. He had a name to go by now, and hoped that could help narrow the search. He wanted to be more prepared when they returned tomorrow.

 

“Dop, would you mind setting up the survey equipment tomorrow night?” Hux asked as he returned to the bedroom.

 

“So we’re going back?” Mitaka did not sound pleased, but he wasn’t outright upset.

 

“You don’t have to go inside, but I have to document this. And find a way to prove reliably that Kylo actually exists.”

 

There was a long beat of silence, filled only with Mitaka’s quizzical stare. Hux broke it with a short laugh. “Yeah, we just went from proving reliably that these things don’t exist, and now I want to prove this one does. Turnabout is fair play, I suppose.”

 

“This isn’t love and war,” Mitaka pointed out.

 

Hux didn’t have a real response for that, and conceded a quiet, “touché.”

 

“I’m planning on notating the entire conversation. I have no other way of recording Kylo’s responses. It’s unfortunate, really, because it isn’t reliable. Anyone can poke holes in it, but with the digital equipment out the door… Anyway, I’m hoping that there will be a signature we can identify in the infrasound frequencies. Something that doesn’t show up at the other locations we’ve documented, but only registers when Kylo is present.”

 

“I also want to get all of the photo and peripheral evidence that I can. I’m still working out how to prove when Kylo is or isn’t present in a certain vicinity.”

 

While Hux spoke, Mitaka was rummaging through his bag at the bedside. He pulled something out, and brought it to him. “If you’re going back into the same room as that thing-” Mitaka shrank a little, “Kylo, I mean- at least take this.” He pressed what felt like a chain necklace into Hux’s hand.

 

It was a flat, thin gold chain. On it hung a simple cross. Mitaka was not religious, and he definitely wasn’t Christian. “Where did you even get this?”

 

“I just have it, you know. Demons… n’ things.” It was obvious Mitaka felt it sounded funny to say out loud, “I don’t really know why, it just felt like a good idea when I saw it.”

 

The thing was relatively well kept, and mostly unworn. It probably just lived in Mitaka’s backpack. Always with him, but never actually on him. Hux decided it probably wasn’t a bad idea, and put it on without fuss. As long as it made Mitaka feel better about the whole thing. It wasn’t worth giving the poor guy a heart attack. Though with the recordings of Kylo, Hux probably wouldn’t let Mitaka anywhere near whatever that was again. The metal was cold against his skin, but warmed quickly as he tucked it under his shirt.

 

“It’ll make me feel better if you have it, instead of me.”

 

Hux just nodded, fiddling with the shape of the cross through his undershirt. It felt rather odd to wear one after never once seeing his father with one, and only learn he was some sort of Anglican when he saw the cross adorn his grave. He’d just assumed Brendol had been Catholic. They were an Irish family living in the UK. Or maybe half of a family. Maybe he converted, but Hux never really cared enough to bother finding out. Didn’t change the fact that he felt strange with the little gold cross at his chest. It wasn’t like anyone would be able to see it, anyway.

 

He meandered to the other side of the bed to plug in his phone. It lit up briefly to confirm that it was actively charging, and to tell him that it was almost six in the morning. The morning sun was  barely able to eke a tumultuous existence on the floor, forcing its way in between the drawn drapes. Hux also vaguely realized he was pretty rank, and so was Mitaka. “I’m going to shower,” he announced, taking his pajamas out of the dresser. 

 

Even with the water kept below lukewarm, he almost fell asleep twice. Each time, he was startled awake by the sound of breaking glass, and an even sharper memory of the heat, and maybe pain on Kylo’s face. But unlike most knee-jerk awakenings, he didn’t forget it. He could, however, identify that it was his imagination. Not a real memory. He hadn’t seen Kylo’s face when the mirror broke and the heat hit him. Hux leaned under the spray and turned the faucet as cold as it could go. Which wasn’t much colder than it already was.

 

Scrubbing the sweat and mud off was easy, but shaking off the uneasy not-fear feeling in his gut wasn’t. He couldn’t just wash that away. Nor could he rinse the tiny, nagging voice at the back of his head that told him what he thought he heard Kylo say was a lie, and that he was very slowly losing it, especially because he’d just flipped stances on his entire life’s work in less than twenty-four hours. He hadn’t gone through his rigorous testing and documentation to prove that Kylo didn’t exist because if he did, and he could prove that…

 

Hux put his face directly under the spray and vigorously shook his head as if to cast the thought right out. If only it were that easy to dislodge the path that reasoning wanted to take. Intended to take. Rightly took. He couldn’t prove his own insanity. That was… the closest thing to career suicide. His acuity was everything. If he wasn’t whatever they called sane, it would wash everything he’d done so far. It was definitely not something Hux wanted to panic about, but the dreadful rabbit hole was just so enticing.

 

He blindly fumbled for the knob to kill the shower when he couldn’t feel his nose or cheeks. There was no use panicking, he told himself. No use in that at all. He just had to keep going. A way to prove Kylo existed would come to him, he just had to sit back, calm down, and look at the problem. Like he did with everything else. His routines and rhythms could easily be adapted. If something was there, then the hard data would present itself. All Hux had to do was collect it and find it. And not let his desire color his results. That would be the more difficult part. For the first time, he was the one who might be crazy. It felt that way, at least.

 

With every other debunking, it wasn’t his own head on the line. It was always some fanatic, or something.

 

Hux toweled off his face and hair, stopping with it draped over his head and scrunched up over his mouth. “No, that’s not necessarily true. I just proved they were victims of mass hallucinations caused by infrasound, or unusual natural gas… et cetera,” he muttered to himself, muffled by the towel, “Ergo, I’d be proving my own susceptibility to it.”

 

“Yes. Simply documenting my own experience.”

 

He wrapped the towel around his hips. The Hux in the mirror looked back at him with a little more ease, collar bones crossed with the glitter of the gold chain. The cross was slightly lopsided and stuck to his damp chest. It almost looked like it belonged around his neck. He checked the progress of his scruff, leaning over the sink to get close to the mirror and run his hands over the stubble. It wasn’t worth shaving yet, so he let it be and tugged on his underwear and pajamas. 

 

Clean, dressed, and satisfied he’d worked through his minor crisis, he returned to the bedroom to find Mitaka struggling to keep himself awake. He really didn’t look good.

 

“Can’t sleep?”

 

Mitaka gave him one of the most exasperated stares Hux could recall seeing from him. His laptop was still on his lap, but he’d since slid all the way down until his chin was resting on his chest, the pillows too numerous to be depressed under just the weight of his skull. The laptop was shaken awake, and just barely lit Mitaka’s face. His hair and eyes caught most of the low light.

 

“You’ll feel better after taking a shower, Dop. I’ll make dinner,” Hux offered, “There’s a fresh towel in there.”

 

The only thing Mitaka had to offer was a groan, but he did get up, letting his laptop slide off his hips.

 

Hux turned his attention to the kitchen, hearing Mitaka’s socked feet head into the bathroom. The fridge yielded some leftovers, lunch meat, and some woeful cheese, an opened half dozen of eggs, and other sandwich fixings. It was a narrow fridge, but somehow, it still looked empty. There were a few options, the best would be making some pan fried sandwiches. Something warm, a little greasy, with soothingly gooey cheese. He pulled everything out, and found a shallow pan. A spritz of oil was all he needed. While he lamented the lack of butter, it would do. 

 

The sandwiches were assembled in layers: cheese, two slices of turkey cold cuts, two of the roast beef, and another slice of cheese to make sure everything stuck together. He checked the temperature of the pan, hand hovering above it. Not quite hot enough, but it would do. He only had room to make one of the sandwiches at a time, anyway. He made sure to leave enough cheese and lunch meat to make a scramble or omelette when they woke up in the evening. The sizzling of the sandwich drew him back to the hob. Hux flipped the sandwich over with a bit of finagling with one of the dull tableware knives. 

 

From the bathroom, the sound of the shower continued, and beside him, the pan toasted sandwich continued popping gently. He slid it out onto the plate, and put the second one on after coating the pan in a new spray of oil. Even though the sandwich was hot enough for him to jerk his hand back, he pressed it down with his fingertips, and managed to hack it in half with the knife. He was almost too hungry to wait for it to cool down, but sucking on his lightly burnt fingertips was reminder enough to quell his impatience. The fresh one would be for Mitaka, something hot, and hopefully comforting.

 

He brought the two sandwiches out to the bed. He left Mitaka’s on his side, and settled on his side with his own already half eaten one. Soon, Mitaka joined him to eat, redressed, but still shrouded with his towel. “Better?”

 

“Not really.” Mitaka sounded rather noncommittal.

 

“There’s a hot sandwich. You’ll feel better after you eat, then.” Hux pointed at it.

 

That got Mitaka smiling. “Smells good. So maybe.” He picked up the plate set out for him and moved his laptop aside so he could settle on the bed.

 

“Just eat it before you write it off.” Hux tucked back into his sandwich.

 

The sun wasn’t even fighting to get through the blinds anymore. The faded fabric did enough against the light that it wasn’t irritating. The only lamps Hux left on was the one on Mitaka’s bedside table, and even then, the sun that got in through the drapes set a vague glow over the desk and computer monitor. When they finally slept - whenever that would be - neither of them would have any real trouble beyond what their minds cooked up in repose. 

 

Hux busied himself with his notes, writing in his usual neat script in the dim light. He kept drifting, getting lost in his memory of the entire interaction at the cotton house, and what he remembered from the audio. He couldn’t help but wonder if the words on the recordings meant just as much as what he remembered Kylo actually saying. It was still in that strange realm just beyond what Hux thought could feasibly exist. Especially the inexplicable knowledge of his first name. Kylo had asked him who he was, but the Kylo in the audio recording referred to him, not only by last name before he introduced himself, but later by nickname. He made a note to ask Kylo if he knew his first name.

 

He also wanted to ask Kylo what his last name was, and if Kylo was his birth name, or something he called himself. It didn’t seem like any local name, so he added another note to research the name and usage later. The task seemed like something that meant a lot of old newspaper and ledger research. Not fun.

 

The cap end of his pen was riddled with bite marks, an incredibly old habit that hadn’t shown itself in some time. When Hux noticed, he put the pen down, opting instead to tap the margin on the page. Hux made another note to brush up on the previous fires so he could ask Kylo about them. While he was fairly certain that Kylo was linked to the last fire, and probably had something to do with the little flash fires after his death. He wanted to ask him about those after death experiences as well.

 

Hux flipped to the next page to begin outlining the experiments he wanted to conduct. A battery of photographs, control photos around the property, and then he’d see where he could take photos of Kylo in various rooms. It seemed that he could move freely through the property, just not through walls. He flicked back to the previous page to add that to his notes. Kylo was aware he was dead, and was also aware of some of his limits, and that they weren’t ‘normal ghost things.’ Hux added a further notation to ask Kylo what constituted ‘normal’ for a ghost. 

 

Back on the experiment page, he detailed the audio recording he intended to do. He also wanted to have Kylo listen to the recording of their conversation to probe into how self aware he was using technology outside of his scope. That sent him off on a tangent thinking about introducing Kylo to modern technology. He could hardly imagine what it would be like to be locked in time with the rest of the world advancing out of his reach. Death, he supposed, forcibly removed people, as was expected. Kylo hadn’t seemed too put off by all of the gear or different clothes, but in a way, he’d been living in sort of a bubble. He had no reason, or perhaps ability to leave the property.

 

Hux worked himself out of his theorizing before he got absolutely lost in the philosophical spiral. He managed to condense it into more questions for Kylo. Now, he could focus on the obvious questions, to ask him about the time he died. What it was like, since he had been alive during the 20’s and the great depression. Typical era questions that would hopefully provide insights of lesser reported scenarios. What was it really like in such a rural area while the country struggled? He hadn’t seen any sort of car port, but there were blueprints for a barn and stables that were mysteriously absent.

 

Going over his questions, Hux realized his eyes were dry and sticky. It was as if his eyelashes decided to hold on to each other to keep the lids closed. To his left, Mitaka was snoring, the sound soft. He’d fallen asleep with his laptop on his belly, the crumb covered plate abandoned by his hand on the bed. Hux huffed, but it was more of an amused noise. Hux put his notebook down on his side table, and leaned over to close and safely put Mitaka’s laptop on the other table. Not really in the mood to get up, he elected to just put both of their plates on top. Another long reach over him was sufficient to turn off the lamp. While he might have wished for a dark room, the dim light from the window was unavoidable.

 

There was enough light to coat most everything in a dusty grayscale. Not enough to pick out color, but enough to stop any shadows from growing into anything terrifying. Hux turned away from the window and tucked in as the day marched on outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr at kylocatastrophe

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr at the same name.
> 
> I lived in CT when I was younger. I've been to some of the places in the Bridgewater Triangle. They're kind of skin prickling.
> 
> As a person who's had some weird shit happen to me at cemeteries and even in my own home, it was interesting to write this from the perspective of Hux absolutely sure this was bullshit.
> 
> The stuff about low frequency sounds is true as far as I know. I did some research while in college about it and what it does to humans. Some frequencies can actually cause nausea, disorientation, and aural hallucinations. For me, it just makes me unsettled and nervous. Some people are less aware of the sound. Apparently some resonances can negatively impact your physical health though.
> 
> Other characters are probably going to appear, and then there's the history of the estate and what happened before Kylo, and when Kylo was alive. For now, let's just worry about what Kylo sounded like to Mitaka.


End file.
